The Fire Among Ice
by Skryr
Summary: The Handmaiden has known only cold in the ice academy of Telos and her mistress Atris. But when the Exile comes, fire enters her life for the first time. She is drawn to it. She must understand it! LS Exile x Handmaiden. AU after Malachor. Oneshot.


WOE OF THE ICE PRINCESS

Foreword:

Greetings again!

Apologies for the lack of updates again, but I've been busy.

Among the stuff I've been working on, I recently fell back to playing the Sith Lords, so I felt compelled to write a little fluffy fanfic about the Handmaiden. This story

encompasses several select moments from the Handmaiden's interaction with the Exile, until going a little bit AU at the end.

I would also like to give fair warning to the lameness of the dialog that I wrote at the end. It kind of sucks, but I digress.

Enjoy!

* * *

The Handmaiden of Atris walked the corridors of the academy hidden within the recesses of the Telosian polar ice cap. Her mistress had selected the old Jedi repository to be their sanctum years ago, ever since the Handmaiden had been merely a young girl. For some reason, though the place was her home, the Handmaiden knew that she wished for more.

The unforgiving climate of the pole made it difficult to center herself, as was the Echani way. Her meditation was frequently interrupted by feelings of anger and jealousy, wondering why she was the last of the handmaidens though she could easily duel them all. Why did she have to suffer for her father's affair with her mother? How could dishonor be passed on like this?

It was something that her Echani roots clashed with on a regular basis. The Echani were taught that honor was gained through the purest form of expression: battle. Thus, when the Handmaiden's father, the revered general Yusanis, left the war to be with her mother Arren Kae, was that not the most distinct form of expression?

The Handmaiden would often seek advice from her mistress Atris, the aging Jedi historian and one of the last Jedi remaining after the Jedi Civil War, but her answers were unsatisfactory. The Handmaiden did not need consolation, as Atris evidently believed, but rather a solution to her questions.

The unrest had multiplied when she had been instructed to steal the Jedi Exile's starship from the Citadel Station floating above the planet. She had moved with stealth through the masses of refugees from the war huddled in the transport bay, sneaked past the TSF guards, and stowed away aboard the vessel without so much as a word.

She had long since resigned from trying to understand her mistress' commands, what with her wisdom that far surpassed the Handmaiden's own, but this above all puzzled her to no end. She had paced the hallway in front of her dormitory for at least an hour before the sound of the turbolift in motion caught her ears.

_What?_ She wondered. Who could that be?

She moved swiftly with two of her sisters to the turbolift, to find three foreign persons present. One was an old woman dressed in a cowl that obscured her eyes, but all the same seemed to radiate power. The Handmaiden wondered if she was a Jedi.

Another was a young man wearing an outfit the Handmaiden would not have found out of place among the spacers and smugglers that she had seen walking the docks of Citadel Station. His fingers twitched against a blaster holster, but she noticed his eyes flick towards the center figure before his hand retreated.

The central figure was the leader, then. He was rather impressive. Brown hair partially obscured a chiseled face that bore signs of stress, though the Handmaiden could not see how a man otherwise so young could have them. Though he wore armor, the Handmaiden felt the same presence of power as she had with the woman, so this one must be a Jedi as well. He stood with a strange kind of posture, the kind that the Handmaiden had only seen in her mistress herself. He was the most dangerous out of the three, she decided.

"Lay down your weapons, and you shall not be harmed." She spoke before her sisters. The younger man snarled, but the central man merely raised an eyebrow.

"Who are you? We mean no harm."

"I will not warn you again. Drop your weapons, or we shall take them from you." The man looked to the old woman. "Do as they say. I sense we will suffer no harm." Then the man nodded and laid his vibrosword at his feet, followed by the younger man who surrendered – grudgingly – his blasters to the Handmaiden sisters.

The last of the handmaidens led the older man to the central chamber where her mistress would undoubtedly wish to speak with him, while her sisters accompanied the other two to the holding cells.

As they walked, the Handmaiden could feel a strange sort of calm emanating from the man. He seemed to be completely at ease, despite the situation at hand. It was rather maddening to try and discover why this man could not be at the very least troubled with the place, but the Handmaiden again had no answer.

Perhaps Atris could tell her when the time was ready.

* * *

The Handmaiden sat on her mat in the cargo hold of the Exile's starship, which she had since learned was named _The Ebon Hawk_, after some space creature from the days of the conquering Jedi Revan.

So much had happened since the weeks ago when she had led the Exile in haste to her mistress Atris at the academy, and now she wondered how it all occurred this way.

Her mistress, again for a reason the Handmaiden could not begin to understand, had sent her away to the Exile, to follow him as one of his companions, and to learn from him. She did not know why or how this was to be, but she was rather uneasy.

For one, she did not – could not – trust some of the _other_ companions aboard the vessel, most of which she found unsavory. The Handmaiden was not fond of the old woman, Kreia, who took to lecturing when asked a simple question but would otherwise reserve herself to her room to meditate.

Nor did the Handmaiden trust the pilot of the ship, Atton Rand. He was not only annoying, but she wondered why the Exile, as someone apparently as skilled as he was, would tolerate an individual like Atton. He was lazy, arrogant, and generally a waste of a person as far as the Handmaiden was concerned.

The droid and the Exile's Iridonian friend were at least agreeable, the Handmaiden mused. They were polite enough to not disturb her whenever she requested it, nor did they go out of their way to ask rhetorical questions like the two former individuals.

However, the thoughts of the Handmaiden then turned to the Exile. He was odd.

He had requested to spar with her in the traditional ways of the Echani, apparently unaware of their ways of combat. She agreed to humor him, if nothing else, and additionally because she wished the opportunity for herself to see him with his truest expression, a part of the sparring that he did not need to know about.

She did not know what to think of her discoveries.

He _was_ a talented fighter. In all forms of unarmed combat, he had defeated her without difficulty, and ever since she had disgraced herself by allowing her form to be thrown to the ground, she had resolved to beat him in at least one of these duels.

She had failed rather miserably, as it turned out.

Most of the times, she would find herself distracted by him in a way she had never been distracted before. The thought of him was like a trance, almost, how it stopped all of her other thoughts so that her mind could picture only him, standing at the door of the cargo hold in his characteristic light armor and lightsaber in hand. It was a foreign feeling that the Handmaiden knew not with how to deal.

It was like a fire. The concept was quite foreign to the Handmaiden, having lived in "an ice hole" for essentially her entire life, but the descriptions of it seemed to coincide with this new perspective. The Exile exuded a strange aura of sorts, a strength that she could not describe. It was the sixth sense that she did not possess.

The Exile entered the room yet again that week, in fact, to simply talk with her. She still did not know why. They usually discussed philosophical things, such as why the Echani preferred combat to words in forms of expressing oneself, or their often disagreeing views of the Jedi Revan.

But he had asked a simple thing this time: her name.

She had never used her name. She saw no reason behind such a thing, seeing it as an arrogance she could not afford, someone as disgraced as her by her father's sin.

But the way that the Exile had asked, the way so innocently in his soothing voice, the Handmaiden _wanted_ to tell him of the name long ago with which she had been called. But she couldn't. Atris forbid personal connections, and the Handmaiden reasoned that such a thing as a name was one of those.

But when she had simply answered 'no' to his asking, she was even more surprised by his walking away. Not even retaliation or the plea to her logic as he normally used to coax information from her. Nothing.

And she found that more painful than she would have thought possible.

* * *

The Handmaiden returned to her room to fume from the anger that captured her.

The Exile, though normally holding her respect, had infuriated her for the time being. Presently, a Miraluka, rare as they were, was being healed in the medical bay of the ship, not even moments after she had revealed her Sith allegiance, incapacitated everyone in the ship, and had attempted to assassinate the Exile himself!

If it had been up to the Handmaiden, she would have slain the assassin immediately. Yet the Exile chose to spare her life, for reasons not known to the Handmaiden. He had cited the Jedi custom of not killing prisoners, which had left the Handmaiden at a loss for words.

Come to think of it, the Handmaiden wondered why, given her teachings under the Jedi Atris, such a belief had not been instilled. Then again, Atris had not been much for mercy, as those she would punish were certainly guilty of their fate.

The Handmaiden pondered the life of the Miraluka Sith. What value did her life hold? For a time that was not the first, the Handmaiden realized that the Exile perceived the galaxy and its inhabitants in a way radically different from her own.

Perhaps the Sith assassin and the Handmaiden's own life held the same weight to the Exile?

That thought made her angry enough to go back to training.

* * *

"Atris was correct about you. You know much of war and its currents." She steadied herself as she recovered her breath. Their latest duel had been somehow more intense than the others. As if her lungs had to work twice as hard to achieve what she had always been able to do. She did not know why, either. Yet another of these confusing mysteries.

"There is nothing more I can teach you." She put away her forcepike and was in the process of putting on her robe to shield herself from the cold of the cargo hold when the Exile surprised her again.

"Then maybe I can teach you some things." The Handmaiden stopped, if only for the slightest of moments. "I have already learned much of your styles and combat. There is no need to know more."

She turned, seeing the Exile already back in his armor, but with a look of concern over his face. "Is there a problem?"

She hesitated once more. She did not like where this was going. "Combat among the Echani is… a personal thing. Repeated duels are not what they are in other cultures. And…"

Her voice trailed off. She suddenly found it very difficult to breathe. "…I'd rather this not become anything beyond what it is." The Exile frowned. The Handmaiden felt a stab of pain at the look.

She could not bear to see it, so she turned her back. "I have taken an oath to Atris against studying from a Jedi, or anything of the Jedi teachings." She felt his hand touch her shoulder, though unlike the other times, she did not shy away. It gave her strength.

"But do you wish to learn?" He questioned, his breath on her ear. The bravery she felt wavered at his presence. "What I desire…" Her voice faltered again, she cursed herself for this weakness. "…is of no importance."

At his silence the Handmaiden felt compelled to continue. "My father broke his oaths. He shamed us all. I do not wish to follow his path. I _swore_ to not follow his path." With difficulty, she shrugged off the Exile's hand. "If I were to follow a Jedi against Atris' wishes, then I would be betraying her. For you."

The Exile merely looked at her. "We have fought beside each other. You know me as well as you know Atris. What do you want?" The Handmaiden felt a rise of foreign feelings, manifesting in a hesitant frown. She took a deep breath.

"This is a difficult thing to say. I ask that you be silent as I tell you this." She turned to face him once again. "It is my desire to learn from you what you can teach me of battle. I have already learned much from our duels, but with every battle, I wish to know more of _you_."

"Your stance, your movements, I can sense shades of meaning, an echo of something I have yet to experience. Atris said that you were the only Jedi to have survived the Mandalorian Wars. That you had stared into the heart of war, and only turned away because you were forced to."

Her heart, in all its continued weakness, seized her for a moment.

"But I do not believe her. I believe that you made a choice... as my father did. And that is important to me, more than you know. And _you_ are important to me, more than you know. I will accept whatever you wish to teach me, though it breaks my oath to Atris."

The Exile gave her a sincere smile. It warmed her like the heater in the medical bay. "You are doing the right thing. Time will prove it." He walked out of the cargo hold. The Handmaiden whispered more to herself than anything as he vanished. "And I shall await that time."

* * *

The Exile entered the Handmaiden's room again, this time with a curious expression of concern. She stood at his entrance and wondered why he had chosen to arrive. "Yes?"

"I wanted to talk about your mother." The Handmaiden's confusion continued. "What of her? As I said, I knew little about her."

The Exile looked unsure. He bit his lip. "Did you know she was a Jedi Knight?" The Handmaiden frowned. She wished that the mother he referenced with sympathy was the one that she could remember with a fondness. She cursed her sisters for taking away that blessing.

"This is already known to me. Why are you telling me this?" The Exile continued, to the Handmaiden's confusion, to be concerned with something she could not see. "It means that the Force runs strong in your bloodlines. You could learn to use it as I do."

She hesitated again. It seemed to be a habitual thing to do in the Exile's presence. "I think I have always known this. As I followed Atris, perhaps what I wished to follow was the call of my bloodline." Her voice dropped to a whisper. "Of my mother."

She turned away from him. "I have felt… _hollow_ inside, since her loss at Malachor V. With your help, perhaps this wound can be healed." The Exile's features softened. "I shall try."

But as he turned to leave, she could not remain silent. "I… I have thought of all that you have said, all that you have done. And I have thought of my mother. There is something I wish to ask of you."

He turned, surprised. She could see it in his eyes.

"I want you to teach me the ways of the Force. To become a Jedi Knight like my mother." Sadness mingled with the surprise in his gaze. "I… am not a Jedi Knight. I-"

But she cut him off. "There is no one else I would wish to train me. I have seen you in battle, and I have seen your heart. You are what I want to be."

She moved closer to him. There was a kind of magnetism that drew her to him, like that of an inescapable gravity well. "There is a hollow place inside me, but when I am with you, the echo dies."

The Exile looked at her, and for the first time since their meeting, the Handmaiden could not read all of the expressions etched on his face. It was strange.

"If you seek training, then I will train you."  
Her heart soared. She was lightheaded.

"I want to feel what my mother felt for my father, what ran through my mother's veins when she was one with the Force. I wish to hear what my mother heard as she fought the Mandalorians... until the moment she died on Malachor V."

The Exile now bore a smile. Like all of his smiles, the Handmaiden found herself drawn to it even more. But unlike the others, she was no longer afraid of it. She _wanted_ it.

"You have the makings of a Jedi Guardian. I suppose it is time I showed you that path." He reached out and placed her hand upon her shoulder, as he had always done. But again the Handmaiden felt different. A heat, something odd and alien, was among her this time.

"I will not let you down. I will honor you, as I honor the face of my mother."

She felt the heat strengthen. She felt the breathing essence of something. _The Force_, she realized, was indeed alive. It surged through her, like a pulse that was both familiar and unknown, something that she had seen but never felt.

And now she felt it all.

The Exile left the room to the Handmaiden, but his exit was only half noticed as she suddenly felt the life of the Force all around her.

* * *

He entered the room again. The Handmaiden had been scraping the muck off of her boots from that infernal moon Dxun when she noticed him over her.

She stood to meet him. "Yes?" He titled his head, as though seeing something he was unaccustomed to. "Did something strange happen on Dxun? You seem a lot calmer than usual."

She looked away. The memory of the hatred she had seen on Dxun was still fresh, but it was mixed with the pride that she had resisted the Dark Side when she had battled that Sith Acolyte in the tomb of Freddon Nadd.

"I am glad you chose to train me. I hope that I will not let you down." The Exile smiled. "You've already made me proud. There is nothing to fear."

The Handmaiden was glad that he could not see, from the angle of her face, the blush that had arisen. "Your words… honor me. Thank you."

And like that he was gone. The Handmaiden sat down again and returned to her boots, but there was now a lightness that she had discovered for the second time in her life now.

* * *

The ice cold of the polar academy returned to the Handmaiden's senses. It stung against her skin as she grown accustomed to the luxuries of air conditioned starship aboard the Ebon Hawk. It stung against the tears that ran down her face as her mind was a flurry of thoughts.

The Exile was dead.

Anger had rushed to her first, the urge to hurt Kreia and make her suffer, but she knew that as the Jedi that the Exile had trained her to be, such acts of contempt were beneath her.

Then sorrow had collided, with the striking force of the Exile's loss taking away her resolve. She knew that _she_ could not hurt Kreia, but _Atris_ was able to punish those who were worthy of punishment.

So she had taken the old hag to the Telos academy amidst the terrible cold. She had taken Kreia to Atris' chambers so that Atris might render judgment on the Sith scum. But as Kreia's mocking smile returned as she exited Atris' presence, the Handmaiden was torn in two.

Kreia, if that was even her name now, simply walked out of sight. Atris did not exit her chamber, and though the Handmaiden could see her sisters leave their mistress' presence, she was still bitterly confused. How could Atris fall?

There was nothing but malevolence in Kreia's teachings. Atris was _supposed_ to expose her evil and judge her for it! The Handmaiden had never suspected that Atris herself was susceptible to the corruption that the Sith could spread. Her heart fell as she realized that the only Jedi left were the disciples of Matthias.

The three surviving Jedi Masters, Vrook Lamar, Kavar, and Zez-Kai Ell, had all fallen by Kreia's hand in the fatal confrontation at the ruined Jedi Academy on Dantooine. Matthias himself had perished in the fight, Atton was most likely unconscious, and the others, if they were still alive, were trapped on the Ebon Hawk without a clue as to what had transpired.

She was the last of the Handmaidens. And now she was the last of the Jedi.

"Ah, the last of the Handmaidens is before us." One of the Handmaiden's sisters, the eldest by the name of Eila, spoke as she entered the Handmaiden's vision. All five of the sisters had their force pikes drawn. The Handmaiden's heart began to beat faster.

"It is good that you have returned. You have much to answer for." Another sister, this time it was Aliah, spoke with malice in her voice. The sisters encircled their outcast like mynocks before an ambush.

"What are you saying?" The Handmaiden queried, flexing her hand the slightest bit to feel the tug of the Force on her twin lightsabers. She sensed danger imminent. Eila answered her.

"You have betrayed us. Betrayed Atris." Aliah actively brandished her force pike adjacent to her elder sister. "You are no longer one of us. You followed the Jedi and betrayed your oath." The Handmaiden steadied herself.

"Listen to me! Atris has been touched by the Sith!" Eila waved away her speech with an aggressive swing of her force pike. "Silence!"

Aliah took a tentative step forward towards the Handmaiden. "It is a crime to kill blood, but it is not a crime to kill a betrayer such as you."

The Handmaiden felt the Force accompany her again. Her twin lightsabers flew to her hands as she ignited them, the two purple blades edging their light onto the faces of her former sisters. They all bore unfriendly faces, as though they had never before seen her as anything but an enemy.

In retrospect, she wondered if it had always been that way.

"I do not wish to fight you." She said, fearing the worst. To her displeasure, Eila snarled at her.

"Then you shall fall!"

* * *

The Handmaiden watched almost in slow motion as the five of her sisters leaped into the air in tandem, bringing their force pikes with him over their heads to smite their exiled half-sibling. The Handmaiden herself brought her lightsabers over her own head and sliced at the pikes before performing a roll out of the center of the attack.

She turned as she stood, meeting Eila's pike as it came inches from her head. The Handmaiden channeled the Force and shot a wave of air at her eldest sister, causing her to fly across the chamber and collapse next to a pillar.

Next Aliah came, more aggressive and thus more dangerous than her elder. The Handmaiden ducked to avoid a headshot, and then shot a kick out at the knees of her opponent. But Aliah had trained with her long enough to predict such a strategy, and blocked the attack then subsequently exploited the situation with a swift counterkick to the Handmaiden's chest, sending her sprawling.

The Handmaiden rolled backwards with momentum, but as she was still reeling from the attack, Aliah joined her attacks with another sister, in the haze the Handmaiden recognized Teres as Aliah's compatriot. They swung their force pikes at the Handmaiden, who avoided them both while casting another wave of Force Push at her assailants, who like their elder Eila, were sent away in haste towards the chamber walls.

The remaining two sisters, Liret and Serah, if the Handmaiden could recall her younger siblings' names, charged at their target to be met with a defensive lightsaber parry from each of the Handmaiden's weapons.

Liret was thrown to the side as the Handmaiden pressed her saber on her force pike, but this inbalance allowed Serah to bring her own pike in to deliver a shock to the Handmaiden's shoulder.

The pain was a sharp contrast to the duel, but the Handmaiden had endured worse at the hands of the Sith Masters on Dxun, and then in the Battle of Khoonda. She had been trained to handle pain. And so she merely blocked it out and continued to parry Serah's strikes blow for blow.

By this time Eila had recovered from her incapacitation and had rejoined the fight along with Liret in an attempt to create a trio of force pike attacks for the Handmaiden, but she knew that the only way she could win this was to keep them separated.

She cast Force Push for a third time and blasted Liret and Serah away from her again, focusing on Eila's force pike instead. Using a maneuver that she had seen Matthias use so long ago, she concentrated on Eila's hands, using the Force to alter her grip on her force pike.

Eila was evidently unprepared for this and her force pike slipped from her fingers when they proved to be too loose. The Handmaiden performed a roundhouse kick to her sister and knocked her down, then used her lightsabers to sever Eila's force pike.

From behind her back, the Handmaiden heard a battle cry, and then turned in time to block the twin attacks of Aliah and Teres, who had apparently recovered as well. Desperate to prevent them from grouping up, the Handmaiden attempted to cast a form of stasis field.

Though she had never been all that skilled in her usage of the Force (save for the crucial lightsaber fighting techniques, of course), the Handmaiden was thusly pleasantly surprised to see her younger sisters curse as they were frozen in place.

Eila, however, had taken the opportunity to arise and strike yet again, this time leaping into the air and bringing her feet down onto the Handmaiden's back, knocking her to the floor. Her lightsabers fell from her hands and she rolled to avoid getting stomped on.

She used the Force to push herself back up and avoided two punches by Eila's hand. She caught Eila's opposite hand and twisted it, causing a cry of pain from her sister, which she exploited by kicking her feet out from under her.

Liret and Serah had arisen for the second time, but this time the Handmaiden was prepared. Catching Liret's force pike in the strip of cortosis weave that did not feature shock generators, she swung the pike and forced Liret to the ground, and parried Serah's force pike with her stolen one.

In a quick motion the Handmaiden brought Liret's force pike down on Serah's arms, causing her to fall to the ground in pain. She did not look able to stand as her face contorted.

Liret then attempted to catch the Handmaiden unawares, but the Handmaiden swung the pike around and the rod collided with Liret's face, incapacitating her as well.

By this point Teres and Aliah had returned to the fray, and to the Handmaiden's dismay Eila had joined them after recovering Serah's force pike. The Handmaiden swung Liret's pike in a fashion to block the incoming strikes, but was struck in the opposite shoulder.

Another sharp pain resonated within her, but she kept fighting. She could _not_ afford to let Matthias' death go unavenged. The thought of his loss filled her with anger, and she drove the pike into Teres' stomach, who crumpled from the shock.

The Handmaiden twirled the pike around Eila's blocking stance and broke impact with Aliah's shoulder. The Handmaiden followed this by using another Force Push on Aliah, and with the combined force of the force pike's shock and the collision with the chamber walls, was most certainly down and out for the count.

Eila screamed at the Handmaiden as she charged for the final time. Eila's fury had given her the edge to sting the Handmaiden's hand, causing Liret's force pike to drop from her grasp. Before Eila could cause another injury, the Handmaiden swerved to one side and used the Force to summon her fallen lightsabers.

In an even quicker motion the Handmaiden brought both saber blades down on the force pike of her elder sister, cleaving it in two, and then kicked Eila to the ground. Eila twitched for a few moments before lying still.

The Handmaiden took a shaky breath and looked around the chamber. The sounds of battle had finally vacated the spacious room, and now all that she could hear were the tortured groans of her nearly-dead sisters and her own ragged breathing.

She deactivated her lightsabers as she saw a figure approaching from the walkway to her mistress Atris' chamber. Her mistress entered the chamber slowly, without her characteristic detached confidence. There was a certain weathering and unease about her, as though she had recently been tossed into a storm.

"Where have you been? You have been absent for so long, I feared for your safety!" Atris' voice sounded odd. It was too high, too strained. The Handmaiden had never seen her this way.

"Where you with the exile all this time?" The Handmaiden nodded, in a fluster, and quickly answered. "Mistress, as you commanded, I-"

She was thrown back by the magnitude of Atris' Force Push. The actual reality of being assaulted by her mistress did not impact her until several seconds after the matter. "Commanded? Did I command you to consort with him? To follow his teachings? To betray your oath?"

The Handmaiden knew she was clearly delirious. She knew Kreia could twist the minds of even the strongest of wills, but Atris was raving like a madwoman.

"Mistress? I do not understand! I-" Atris silenced her with another wave of force. "Of course you do not. But you will learn." Atris activated her lightsaber, but as she did so the Handmaiden registered in her flight across the chamber that it was a ruby red.

A side effect of her battle fatigue, the Handmaiden tried to recall what color of Atris' lightsaber had been, and then as her mistress hurled herself through the air to attack the Handmaiden, she realized that she had never seen it.

Kreia had not converted Atris. She merely stripped away the lies.

The Handmaiden had to use everything that she had been taught to avoid serious injury as Atris relentlessly pushed her attack. Her former mistress was fueled by the Dark Side, and though she had seen its terrible use in the form of the Sith Assassins that Matthias had fought, or even the terrible Sith Lord Sion, she had thought that fury could not be anything more.

As Atris fought like a demon, the Handmaiden changed this opinion dramatically.

Atris combined a deadly use of lightning that surged from her fingertips with her hate-filled skill with the lightsaber. Several times the electric force struck the Handmaiden, and though she managed to deflect the full force, she could feel her strength waning. She could not last much longer.

Her mistress then cast her aside with a wave of her hand. "Enough!"

The Handmaiden was slammed into the pillar in the center of the chamber, only a small distance from the body of her sister Eila. The irony was not lost on her.

Atris stood over her with a terrifying madness in her features. "Did you have feelings for him?!" Lightning shot through her fingertips and this time, without the shielding of her lightsabers, the Handmaiden felt the energy go through her like wildfire.

"Did you touch him?! Did you look upon him with love?!" Atris shrieked at her former servant, more lightning arcing from her hands. A brief moment of solace occurred as Atris looked off into the distance. "There is no love in that one. He is a SHELL!"

The Handmaiden felt herself lifted into the air with invisible tendrils, then thrown into another pillar as Atris screamed. "He is devoid of emotion! All that he was died at MALACHOR!" Her screams were accentuated with the collision of the Handmaiden's body with another pillar, until she was thrown to the ground at the steps of the walkway to Atris' sanctum.

The Handmaiden lay there, unable to move and her body screaming louder than Atris' words, as she saw through the red haze of her vision her master standing before her.

"And he dies there still, as he should!" Atris raised her lightsaber to strike down her servant, when suddenly a voice the Handmaiden had not thought she would ever hear again rang out in the chamber.

"Atris! Stop!"

Atris turned, looking incredulously at the figure of Matthias Zekk, the Jedi Exile. Her look of disbelief almost instantaneously transformed into a deranged smile.

"So, one exile has arrived to save another?" She pointed her lightsaber at the Handmaiden, then motioned towards Matthias, as if drawing an imaginary line in the air. The Exile merely shook his head.

"Do not harm her. If you wish to punish anyone, punish me instead." Atris frowned, the first sign of sane emotions entering her eyes. "Do you care so much for her that you have come all this way? Perhaps you have feelings after all."

She then looked away. "But I cannot pardon either of you. You must be both be punished for your crimes." Matthias walked towards her, his hands away from his double lightsaber and raised in a placating manner.

"I do not wish to fight you Atris. We are not enemies." Atris turned back to him unnaturally fast. "Lies! I refuse your noble offer!" She drew her saber to her and thrust it at the Exile, who was forced to dodge with a curse escaping his lips.

"Your execution has been too long delayed Exile!"

The Handmaiden heard the sounds of lightsabers meeting in combat, of force powers used to destroy the surrounding environment, and managed to catch flashes of light from her hazy blackness, but ultimately succumbed to the mist that coated her eyes. The pain was too much to bear awake.

She joined her sister Eila and slumped against the pillar.

* * *

The Handmaiden dreamt that she was in her childhood home. Her father, the great general Yusanis, stood with his arm around the shoulder of her mother Arren Kae, the Jedi Knight he had pursued during the Wars.

The Handmaiden watched as he beckoned for her to approach. The entire scene was so surreal, so peaceful, and so unreal, that she knew she was dreaming. She was dead. This was the last moment of her life before nothingness overtook her.

But she could see him, could sense that he was there. She could even hear his voice again, the same mingling of strict Echani dogmatism and the paternal side of him that he ever only displayed around her. "Come back. We're all waiting for you."

The Handmaiden tried to speak, but nothing would come out of her mouth. "We?" She mouthed, but nothing changed. Her father continued to wave in her direction. "Come back to us. Come back to me."

The Handmaiden wanted _so_ badly to return to her father. She loved him so much…

His words magnified themselves as he continued to repeat them.

"Come back. Come back."

The scene began to fade. The Handmaiden panicked as her parental figures vanished and were replaced by an abject white vacuity. Strange sounds and lights began to enter her limbo. None of it made any sense to her dying mind. Her father's voice was still heard.

"Come back. Come back to me."

The Handmaiden opened her eyes.

* * *

Matthias' handsome face greeted her. A smile broke upon his terse features when her eyelids fluttered awake. His breath was hot on her face against the cold feeling everywhere else. She felt like her blood was boiling under her frozen skin.

Matthias was holding her. His arms were sturdy. She tried and failed to grab onto them of her own accord, but she was too weak to move. Her head bobbed, struggling to keep itself upright. If she could just concentrate on staying awake and in his arms…

A terrible, wonderful idea struck her. If she was going to die, she was at least going to die with a smile on her face. In a swift motion she brought her lips together with Matthias', surprising even herself.

The heat intensified as they stayed connected. Matthias' arms wrapped tighter around her body. She loved it. She loved _him_.

_There_, she conceded to herself. _I admit it._ At last.

She felt her strength collapse against Matthias' body. She broke the kiss to hold onto him with her fatigued hands gripping his robe. "You came for me."

She breathed in his scent. It was like a summer's day on Dantooine. Warm and pleasant. "I thought I had lost you." His voice echoed through their embrace.

"For a minute, I thought I had lost _you_." She sniffed back a tear. He was alive!

"Kreia… she said that the council had ended you. And all along she was the one who sought to kill us. When I-" She broke off. Her voice refused to function.

Matthias whispered to her ears. "It's going to be alright. Just be calm. We're alright." She swallowed the hot lump in her throat. The pain lessened by a fractional amount. "When I heard you were dead I failed you. I let my emotions run through me. I-"

She stopped again. His whispers reassured her once more. "I acted without… without thinking. I wanted to hurt her for hurting you, and the council, and…"

She trailed off. Matthias merely held her. "It's alright. I'm here. We're safe. Calm yourself."

She used his body to stand. Shakily she managed to use her own legs to remain upright. "Of-of course. Forgive my display. I-ah!" Her legs gave out. She could not trust them these days, it seemed. Matthias caught her, but she did not mind. She had made a new discovery.

The heat that she had always attributed to the Force was mislabeled, it seems. Whenever she had felt strongest was when she was with Matthias. Whenever he was nearest, _that_ was when the heat would be present. She had always felt the radiance of his fire, but in her misguided perceptions of it, she had mistaken it for the Force and nothing more.

The glory of this moment, to be in his arms, felt incomplete to the Handmaiden, however. The pain was misplaced among the intense feelings of calm that emanated from the Exile. He walked slowly back to the ship.

"Matthias…" She breathed into his shoulder. She felt him stiffen at this. "What did you say?"

She glanced upward in a hazy motion, almost delirious from the pain. "Matthias. Your name." Matthias frowned slightly, as though a child had uttered something so confusing it was impossible to decipher.

"You've never used my name before." The Handmaiden attempted to shrug. At her shoulder's refusal, it appeared to be a half-hearted spasm. "I-I've never felt the desire to before."

"Moments ago, that-" Matthias fumbled. The Handmaiden supplied the word for him. "Kiss?" He nodded. "What-why was that-?"

The Handmaiden smiled. It was the most obvious things he could not see. "I am not afraid anymore."

"Afraid of what?" He asked.

"Afraid of you. Afraid of my feelings. Afraid of…" She tried her best to focus on his face. If she could remain awake, maybe she could kiss those features again…

"I-I never realized you felt this way." Matthias appeared confused through the mist that was the Handmaiden's vision. It was so endearing the way his brow scrunched itself together.

"I love you, Matthias."

Her words were met with lips. The fire burned within her. Her nerves screamed at her to rest, but if she could simply _live_ for these last few moments…

"Brianna." She murmured against him. Her breathes were more sporadic now. "What?"

"I never told you-" She coughed. "-my name. Brianna."

She was vaguely aware of the medical bay lights being brought on her, the walls of the Ebon Hawk surrounding her limp form, and the worried mutterings of Atton as he scoured the medical tools. She only saw _his_ face, felt _his_ lips touch hers, and heard the voice she was drawn to echo in her mind.

"_I love you too Brianna."_

The darkness came in again.

* * *

It was many days before Brianna awoke. There was a strange calmness about the atmosphere of the Ebon Hawk as she opened her eyes to the now-dimmed medical lights and looked around. She felt her skin, still fresh with the smell of Kolto, but now free of the burns and bruises that had given her cause to fall asleep.

She wondered where everyone was. She knew that Kreia had departed during her confrontation with her corrupted mistress, but she did not know anything else.

Suddenly _his_ voice sounded. "Brianna! You're awake!"

She felt his arms around her again. It was almost crushing against her exhausted body, but she did not care. The solace was well worth the price.

"Yes, Matthias. What is going on? How long have I been gone?" Matthias shook his head. "Don't worry. Everything is fine now."

Brianna cocked an eyebrow. "What do you mean, 'everything'?"

"Everything! The battles, the Sith! We won!"

Brianna was stunned. She had slept through the final battle? Or maybe there was not final battle? Did it really matter? She survived and was with him and she knew she loved him.

There was not much more to ask for.

"What about the others? Are they here?"

"Atton and Visas are here, yes. Mira left as soon as she was able. And T3, of course, is still here." Brianna noticed a sadness about the Matthias as he left off someone she knew he would not have wanted to. "Bao Dur."

It was a statement, not a question. She already knew the answer by the way his face changed. "Yes. He died as he lived: noble, probably more noble than I ever was."

Brianna fell back against the pillow of her bed. "But Kreia is dead?" Matthias nodded. "And the other two, Sion and Nihilus. And G0-T0 as well. It seems he was a traitor to us all, but the Remote dealt with him. We're all here."

He looked into her face. "You survived too. Atton said you wouldn't, but you did."

She felt the heat return. This time it was not bittersweet.

"I have something to come back for, Matthias. _Someone_ needs to watch over you."

He grinned. "So it seems."

A soft kiss accompanied his words and he left her to her joyous thoughts.

* * *

Brianna walked the stairs of the Jedi Temple of Coruscant. The halls sacred to the Jedi were in the process of being rebuilt, as per Matthias' request of the Republic officials. The ceremonies surrounding their successful return to the core worlds had been quite entertaining.

Atton had attempted no less than seven times to bribe his way into a "private meeting" with some of the fairer ambassadors from Corelia and Alderaan, until Matthias had to personally mediate with the guards, all to Brianna and the others' amusement.

Mira had arrived from the Outer Rim to attend, and though she cited the only reason for her return was "to find some good ale and go hunting", Brianna was happy she could return. Visas was present as well, much different now.

She had changed since Brianna had last spoken to her. She was now calmer, and took to wearing her "blindness" as a gift rather than a curse. Along with Brianna and a young disciple that Matthias had found on Dantooine, Visas had agreed to help train more Jedi for the reconstruction of the Order.

It was an arduous undertaking, but Matthias would have it no other way.

Brianna retired to the suite that admiral Onasi had provided the war heroes early, pondering over what was to come. She loved Matthias and he reciprocated. The Jedi Order prohibited such attachment, but it did not matter much anymore, it seemed.

She rather thought that the bond between them now aided her, _strengthened_ her, rather than be a liability that the Jedi would have taught it to be. She hoped beyond hope that this was a permanent thing. She had pledged herself to him, though once as a servant as she would have to Atris, all that time ago in the cold cargo hold of a lone space voyage.

But now she wished to pledge herself in a different manner.

The door to the suite opened with her beloved within. "Brianna. What are you doing up here?"

"I could ask you the same question." She closed the distance between them and gave him a quick kiss on the cheek. "I wished to escape from the crowds. To think."

Matthias nodded. "As did I."

They stood in silence for a while until Brianna spoke again. "I have been thinking, Matthias. About you. About us."

He smiled. "So have I." She continued.

"Our love cannot be denied. It is forbidden by the Jedi, yet we continue. Why?"

"It's simple Brianna. The Jedi view love as an attachment, as passion. That leads to the dark side. However," he traced her cheek with his hand. She ignored the flames that erupted.

"They forget that the key to compassion is through love. Kreia was correct in one way at least; the Jedi teachings were quite flawed."

He titled his head towards hers. "I love you Brianna. To the end of my days I wish you to know that." She kissed him. It felt good.

"I love you too Matthias."

They stood in each other's arms until they could do so no longer.

And then they laid in arms.

Brianna did not think of much else after that. It was too peaceful a calm to disturb. Instead she committed herself to _living_. To love.

The night was never forgotten.

* * *

Yeah, I'm a sucker for happy endings.

Leave a review and let me know what you think, and I promise I'll release some more work soon.

I've just been a bit busy, so I'll post as soon as I am able.

Starside!

-Skryr


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